CBC Digital Archives

Making faces with Halloween makeup

Masked, bewigged and in disguise, the voices demand: "Trick or treat!" "Halloween apples!" "Shell out, shell out, the witches are out!" It's Oct. 31, a night when Canadian kids don costumes, hold parties and knock on doors in search of candy. From apple-bobbing in the country to drag queens in the city, CBC Digital Archives takes a look at changing ways of celebrating Halloween.

They limit your vision and can be hot and uncomfortable. So why wear a Halloween mask when there are better ways to complete your costume? With things already lying around the house - washable markers and Mom's free lipstick samples - you can make up a face that's easily washed off when trick-or-treating is over. Or, as Midday correspondent Laurie Hoogstratten shows in this 1995 clip, you can get some very effective results from a $2 tube of fake blood.
• Despite perennial advice that makeup at Halloween is safer than masks for trick-or-treating children, sales of masks remain high every year. According to party retailer iParty.com in 2008, popular characters from children's TV and movies always sell well. Time-honoured costumes - witches, ghosts, devils, angels, princesses and pirates - also continued to be popular.
  • Sales of Halloween masks have accurately predicted the outcome of presidential elections in the United States. According to retailer Buycostumes.com, since 1980 the candidate whose mask sells more units before Halloween in an election year has been elected president that November. The pattern held true for Barack Obama in 2008. 

Medium: Television
Program: Midday
Broadcast Date: Oct. 24, 1995
Host: Brent Bambury, Tina Srebotnjak
Reporter: Laurie Hoogstratten
Duration: 4:31

Last updated: February 14, 2012

Page consulted on April 2, 2013

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